CAHUN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (23)
By:
March 22, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… anti-fascist art! Series edited by Josh Glenn.
(WHAT’S SO FUNNY ’BOUT) PEACE, LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING
Just imagine for a moment having second thoughts about praising a song as pure as Nick Lowe’s 1974 pop classic, “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” a jukebox favorite all the more famous thanks to Elvis Costello having popularized it.
Just imagine looking over your shoulder, given today’s swirling political zeitgeist, as you might otherwise thoughtlessly hum Lowe’s crowd-pleasing, tear-encouraging, encore-substantiating chorus.
Might someone read about your love for a song like this one, and hold your affection against you? Might they file away the tidbit for future reference? Hard as that paranoia may be to picture, the song does pretty much the same, right? Lowe asks himself early on: “Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred and misery?”
Might these same shadowy figures twist some of the song’s probing questions — “So where are the strong and who are the trusted?” — into calls for insurrection and deception? Might they read ill intent into its pleading for common sense? If that scenario sounds crazy, remember that Lowe got there first, as well. The song begins by depicting a broken landscape: “As I walk through this wicked world / Searching for light in the darkness of insanity.”
I’m here to say there is light in the darkness. It can be helpful, even comforting, to remember that the ameliorative powers of “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” are so formidable that they won over Lowe first of all. As he recalled in an interview back in 2011, initially the concept of the song was to parody the peace movement — but the righteousness in the concept, the good in it, made quick work of the intended snark. “It was originally supposed to be a joke song,” he said, “but something told me there was a little grain of wisdom in this thing, and not to mess it up.”
This year I saw, separately, both Costello and Lowe in concert, both times in San Francisco, where I have lived for many years. Costello deployed a rousing rendition of the song to close out a setlist that he sprinkled with barbs about the current political climate. Lowe, however, didn’t include it in his set — and this was on the song’s native soil, hippie ground zero, at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park. Might Lowe himself be having second thoughts? Perhaps not, as he included it later on the same tour — but then again, that was in Spain. In the moment, in the park’s sunshine, the song’s absence seemed to send a message, and not a good one.
So, just imagine having second thoughts yourself about praising Lowe’s indelible contribution to the protest songbook. I can’t — or I can’t quite — picture myself that downhearted, but some days I almost can.
CAHUN YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mark Kingwell on ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON | Lynn Peril on ZAZOUS | Judith Zissman on DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI | Annie Nocenti on MEDIUM COOL | Mike Watt on FASCIST | William Nericcio on LALO ALCARAZ | Josh Glenn on THE LADY VANISHES | Carlo Rotella on INQUIETUD | Heather Quinlan on CASABLANCA | Adam McGovern on HEART OF GLASS (MAD JENNY) | Matthew Battles on WOODY’S GUITAR | Carl Wilson on PALACES OF GOLD | Ramona Lyons on UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED | Lucy Sante on CAMOUFLAGE | Adelina Vaca on THE LIVES OF OTHERS | Tom Nealon on THE BARON IN THE TREES | Nikhil Singh on PARIS PEASANT | Mandy Keifetz on THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED | Gordon Dahlquist on THE CONFORMIST | Michael Grasso on PYNCHONIAN RESISTANCE | Gabriela Pedranti on THE ETERNAUT | Heather Kapplow on ANTI-FASCIST PASTA | Marc Weidenbaum on (WHAT’S SO FUNNY ’BOUT) PEACE, LOVE, AND UNDERSTANDING | Peggy Nelson on PUPPETS | Sonia Marques on CARNATIONS AGITPROP.
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